question, I was here, working on a deposition with a client, a stenographer, and my assistant until nearly nine.”
“If I could get the stenographer’s name?”
It pissed him off, but Paul gave them the woman’s name. The sooner they ruled him out, the better. “Is Torie okay?”
“She’s in the hospital.” This was from the chief again, Marsden. “She got a conk on the head, a nasty cut. We’re investigating who might have wanted to hurt her. Do you know anyone else who bore her a grudge, Mister Jameson?”
“You say that as if you think I bore her one. I didn’t.”
“And yet you didn’t want her marrying your best friend. Why?”
“There were a lot of reasons. What does that have to do with anything now? That was five years ago.”
“Humor us.” Sorrels smiled. “Never know when things are connected.”
“I didn’t think they were well matched.”
“Were you interested in Mister Peterson, and didn’t want Torie to marry him?” Sorrels shot back.
“Interested…” Paul threw his head back and laughed. Wait till he told Todd. “Uh, no. Did Torie tell you that?” He hadn’t thought she’d be that petty.
“No, actually she didn’t. Quite the opposite. Did you prefer her for yourself?”
Paul tamped down his anger at the question. These were experienced investigators. No need to give them anymore ammunition to look his way.
“No, but I did see that she was a far more serious, settle-down kind of girl. My friend was and is a happy-go- lucky sort. He didn’t need to get married that young. Then things changed, and he didn’t.” Paul sighed. “Regardless, that was years ago. Todd has moved on with his life, and so, I presume, has Torie.”
“Ms. Hagen indicated that she and Mister Peterson were to have lunch today, after he had a meeting with you. Were you aware of that?”
Paul frowned. Damn Todd and his endless need to
He shut down that line of thinking, since it was particularly fruitless. He’d never been able to convince Todd that Torie wasn’t damaged for life by being left at the altar.
It served nothing to lie to the men before him, so Paul answered with the truth.
“No, I didn’t know that. I would have tried to talk him out of it if I had. That’s probably why he didn’t tell me.”
“Do you have any idea why he’d want to meet with her, and hide it from you?”
“He knew I wouldn’t approve.”
“And was your approval so important to him?” This from the taller one, Sorrels.
“We were friends, Inspector. I was also his counsel. Todd hasn’t had an easy life, even with the money he won. I assume you know about the money?”
“Yes,” Marsden replied. “Ms. Hagen indicated that he’d won a considerable sum, and that the win was the reason he called off the wedding. Do you agree with her assessment?”
“I do. I think he also had cold feet. He was worried about her mother’s interfering ways, and about his own ability to be faithful. His eyes wandered a lot when they were dating. He never cheated on her, but I believe he thought about it.”
Paul closed his eyes. He remembered how he’d once pulled Todd back from the brink when his flirting had nearly gone too far with a waitress in a bar. Paul hadn’t wanted to see either Todd or Torie hurt. That had been the first time Paul had tried to talk him out of the marriage.
Unfortunately, Torie had walked in on that discussion.
“Anyway, he didn’t cheat. Then he won the jackpot. He came to me with the news, and wondered how on earth he was going to tell Torie. I asked if she would be happy about it, and he said he didn’t know.”
“He didn’t know if his fiancee would be happy about several million dollars?”
Chapter Three
Sorrels seemed surprised. Paul smiled.
“You see why I was worried?” Paul shrugged. “I kept asking him why he felt she wouldn’t be happy about it. He said he wondered if she’d want to leave her widowed mother behind, travel the world.” Paul remembered Todd’s boyish excitement about the prospect of honest-to-goodness world travel. “I knew that anyone, especially a woman, would be happy about money coming in, but if he was worried, I was worried.”
“Especially a woman? You thought she was a gold digger?”
“Oh, no, not in the sense you mean. Before the big win, her family had far more money than Todd’s. Her father owned some sort of manufacturing business, did pretty well. He passed away a few years before they were to be married, and the business was sold, but at the time, they were doing well.”
“So why else did you dislike Ms. Hagen? She indicated that there was an antipathy long before the aborted wedding.”
Once again Paul squelched the instant spurt of anger. How did you admit that kind of pain to a couple of strangers, both of whom had already decided you might be gay?
“We’d had a confrontation over some college…” he hesitated. Torie had been adamant about the situation then, and given the trouble it was still causing, he’d better choose his words with care. “Pranks. We argued about it. Very loudly. And she heard me tell Todd I thought he shouldn’t get married. In typical fashion, she thought I was dissing
